Three Indian female cricketers have made to the Forbes India Celebrity 100 list of 2019. The Celebrity 100 list of India has 3 women cricketers – Mithali Raj, Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana making to the top 100.
Forbes India released its Celebrity 100 list for 2019. Like most years, the list was dominated by Bollywood personalities. Sportspersons, especially cricketers have also made it to the list.
Talking about women cricketers, Mithali Raj, Smriti Mandhana and Harmanpreet Kaur have found their way to the top 100. They are arguably the three most popular female cricketers of the country.
Things started to change for women cricketers after India made it to the finals of the ICC Women’s World Cup in 2017. Players got more exposure and more people started following the sport. More matches were televised and women’s cricket was talked about in the country. Female cricketers were sponsored by various brands while the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) increased the money of central contracts.
Mithali Raj, who currently captains the national ODI team, stands at the 88th position. She has a bat sponsorship deal with Laver & Wood while she also endorses Uber and Rio Tinto’s diamonds.
Smriti Mandhana is counted amongst the top batters in women’s cricket. She is on the 90th position in the list. Mandhana endorses Bata while she has a bat deal with Hero MotoCorp.
Harmanpreet Kaur who is the T20I captain of team India ranks at 91. Kaur is known for her big-hitting and reliable knocks in the middle order for the team. Kaur has a deal with Ceat and she is the brand ambassador for ITC’s B Natural juices.
While the three of them have made it to the lower half of the list, India’s male cricketers rank at the top. Captain of India men’s cricket team Virat Kohli tops the list while Mahendra Singh Dhoni stands at the fifth position. Sachin Tendulkar and Rohit Sharma are at numbers 9 and 11 respectively. Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah, KL Rahul and Shikhar Dhawan also occupy good spots within the top 50.
(Source: www.forbesindia.com)
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